From the first rip of the pink wrapping paper Sarah could see that she hadn’t been given a vampire suit. But she hoped it wasn’t a zombie, even when she could see the sickly green of the mask, the bloated liver spots, the word ZOMBIE! far too proudly emblazoned upon the box. She thought it must be a mistake. And was about to say something, but when she looked up at her parents she saw they were beaming at her, encouraging, urging her on, urging her to open the lid, urging her to become one of the walking dead. So she smiled back, and she remembered not to make a fuss, that it was Granny’s day – and hoped they’d kept the receipt so she could swap it for a vampire later. Daddy asked if he could give her a hand, and Sarah said she could manage, but he was helping her already, he’d already got out the zombie mask, he was already enveloping her whole face within it. He helped her with the zombie slippers, thick slabs of feet with overgrown toenails and peeling skin. He helped her with the suit, snapped the buckle. Sarah felt cold all around her, as if she’d just been dipped into a swimming pool – but it was dry inside this pool, as dry as dust, and the cold dry dust was inside her. And the surprise of it made her want to retch, but she caught herself, she swallowed it down, though there was no saliva in that swallow. Her face slumped, and bulged out a bit, like a huge spot just ready to be burst -and she felt heavier, like a sack, sodden – but sodden with what, there was no water, was there, no wetness at all, so what could she be sodden with? “Turn around!” said Daddy, and laughed, and she heard him with dead ears, and so she turned around, she lurched, the feet wouldn’t let her walk properly, the body felt weighed down in all the wrong areas. Daddy laughed again, they all laughed at that, and Sarah tried to laugh too. She stuck out her arms in comic zombie fashion. “Grr,” she said. Daddy’s face was shining, Mummy looked just a little afraid. Granny was staring, she couldn’t take her eyes off her. “Incredible,” she breathed. And then she smiled, no, it wasn’t a smile, she grinned. “Incredible.” Graham had got bored watching, and had gone back to doing whatever it was that werewolves do around Christmas trees.
“And after all that excitement, roast turkey, with all the trimmings!” said Mummy. Sarah’s stomach growled, though she hadn’t known she was hungry. “Come on, children, toys away.” “I think Sarah should wear her suit to dinner,” said Granny. “I agree,” said Daddy, “she’s only just put it on.” “All right,” said Mummy. “Have it your own way. But not you, Graham. I don’t want a werewolf at the dining table. I want my little boy.” “That’s not fair!” screamed Graham. “But werewolves don’t have good table manners, darling,” said Mummy. “You’ll get turkey everywhere.” So Graham began to cry, and it came out as a particularly plaintive howl, and he wouldn’t take his werewolf off, he wouldn’t, he wanted to live in his werewolf forever, and Mummy gave him a slap, just a little one, and it only made him howl all the more. “For God’s sake, does it matter?” said Daddy, “let him be a werewolf if he wants to.” “Fine,” said Mummy, “they can be monsters then, let’s all be monsters!” And then she smiled to show everyone she was happy really, she only sounded angry, really she was happy. Mummy scraped Graham’s Christmas dinner into a bowl, and set it on to the floor. “Try and be careful, darling,” she said, “remember how hard we worked to get this carpet clean? You’ll sit at the table, won’t you, Sarah? I don’t know much about zombies, do zombies eat at the table?” “Sarah’s sitting next to me,” said Granny, and she grinned again, and her whole face lit up, she really had quite a nice face after all. And everyone cheered up at that, and it was a happy dinner, even though Granny didn’t think the turkey was the best cut, and that the vegetables had been overcooked. Sarah coated her turkey with gravy, and with cranberry sauce, she even crushed then smeared peas into it just to give the meat a bit more juice – it was light and buttery, she knew, it looked so good on the fork, but no sooner had it passed her lips than the food seemed stale and ashen. “Would you pull my cracker, Sarah?” asked Granny brightly, and Sarah didn’t want to, it was hard enough to grip the cutlery with those flaking hands. “Come on, Sarah,” laughed Daddy, and so Sarah put down her knife and fork, and fumbled for the end of Granny’s cracker, and hoped that when she pulled nothing terrible would happen – she’d got it into her head that her arm was hanging by a thread, just one firm yank and it’d come off. But it didn’t – bang! went the cracker, Granny had won, she liked that, and she read out the joke, and everyone said they found it funny, and she even put on her paper hat. “I feel like the belle of the ball!” she said. “Dear me, I am enjoying myself!”
After dinner Granny and Sarah settled down on the sofa to watch the Bond movie. Mummy said she’d do the washing up, and as she needed to clean the carpet too, she might be quite a while. And Daddy volunteered to help her, he said he’d seen this Bond already. Graham wanted to pee, so they’d let him out into the garden. So it was just Granny and Sarah sitting there, just the two of them, together. “I miss Arthur,” Granny said during the title sequence. “Sonia tells me I need to get over it, but what does Sonia know about love?” Sarah had nothing to say to that. Sitting on the sofa was hard for her, she was top heavy and lolled to one side. She found though that she was able to reach for the buckle on her suit. She played with it, but her fingers were too thick, she couldn’t get purchase. The first time Bond snogged a woman Granny reached for Sarah’s hand. Sarah couldn’t be sure whether it was Granny’s hand or her own that felt so leathery. “Do you know how I met Arthur?” asked Granny. Sitting in her slumped position, Sarah could feel something metal jab into her, and realized it must be the necklace that Mummy had given her. It was buried somewhere underneath all this dead male flesh. “Arthur was already married. Did you know that? Does it shock you? But I just looked at him, and said to myself, I’m having that.” And there was a funny smell too, thought Sarah, and she supposed that probably was her. James Bond got himself into some scrapes, and then got out of them again using quips and extreme violence. Granny hadn’t let go of Sarah’s hand. “You know what love is? It’s being prepared to let go of who you are. To change yourself entirely. Just for someone else’s pleasure.” The necklace was really rather sharp, but Sarah didn’t mind, it felt real, and she tried to shift her body so it would cut into her all the more. Perhaps it would cut through the layers of skin on top of it, perhaps it would come poking out, and show that Sarah was hiding underneath! “Before I met him, Arthur was a husband. And a father. For me, he became a nothing. A nothing.” With her free hand Sarah tried at the buckle again, this time there was a panic to it, she dug in her nails but only succeeded in tearing a couple off altogether. And she knew what that smell was, Sarah had thought it had been rotting, but it wasn’t, it was old cigarette smoke. Daddy came in from the kitchen. “You two lovebirds getting along?” he said. And maybe even winked. James Bond made a joke about re-entry, and at that Granny gripped Sarah’s hand so tightly that she thought it’d leave an imprint for sure. “I usually get what I want,” Granny breathed. Sarah stole a look out of the window. In the frosted garden Graham had clubbed down a bird, and was now playing with its body. He’d throw it up into the air and catch it between his teeth. But he looked undecided too, as if he were wondering whether eating it might be taking things too far.
Graham had tired of the werewolf suit before his bedtime. He’d undone the belt all by himself, and left the suit in a pile on the floor. “I want a vampire!” he said. “Or a zombie!” Mummy and Daddy told him that maybe he could have another monster next Christmas, or on his birthday maybe. That wasn’t good enough, and it wasn’t until they suggested there might be discounted monsters in the January sales that he cheered up. He could be patient, he was a big boy. After he’d gone to bed, Granny said she wanted to turn in as well – it had been such a long day. “And thank you,” she said, and looked at Sarah. “It’s remarkable.” Daddy said that she’d now understand why he’d asked for all those photographs; to get the resemblance just right there had been lots of special modifications, it hadn’t been cheap, but he ho
ped it was a nice present? “The best I’ve ever had,” said Granny. “And here’s a little something for both of you.” And she took out a cheque, scribbled a few zeroes on to it, and handed it over. She hoped this might see them through the recession. “And merry Christmas!” she said gaily.
Granny stripped naked, and got into her nightie – but not so fast that Sarah wasn’t able to take a good look at the full reality of her. She didn’t think Granny’s skin was very much different to the one she was wearing, the same lumps and bumps and peculiar crevasses, the same scratch marks and mottled specks. Hers was just slightly fresher. And as if Granny could read Sarah’s mind, she told her to be a good boy and sit at the dressing table. “Just a little touch up,” she said. “Nothing effeminate about it. Just to make you a little more you.” She smeared a little rouge on to the cheeks, a dash of lipstick, mascara. “Can’t do much with the eyeballs,” Granny mused, “but I’ll never know in the dark.” And the preparations weren’t just for Sarah. Granny sprayed behind both her ears from her new perfume bottle. “Just for you, darling,” she said. “Your beautiful little gift.” Sarah gestured towards the door, and Granny looked puzzled, then brightened. “Yes, you go and take a tinkle. I’ll be waiting, my sweet.” But Sarah had nothing to tinkle, had she, didn’t Granny realize there was no liquid inside her, didn’t she realize she was composed of dust? Sarah lurched past the toilet, and downstairs to the sitting room where her parents were watching the repeat of the Queen’s speech. They started when she came in. Both looked a little guilty. Sarah tried to find the words she wanted, and then how to say them at all, her tongue lay cold in her mouth. “Why me?” she managed finally.
Daddy said, “I loved him. He was a good man, he was a kind man.” Mummy looked away altogether. Daddy went on, “You do see why it couldn’t have been Graham, don’t you? Why it had to be you?” And had Sarah been a werewolf like her brother, she might at that moment have torn out their throats, or clubbed them down with her paws. But she was a dead man, and a dead man who’d been good and kind. So she nodded briefly, then shuffled her way slowly back upstairs.
“Hold me,” said Granny. Sarah didn’t know how to, didn’t know where to put her arms or her legs. She tried her best, but it was all such a tangle. Granny and Sarah lay side by side for a long time in the dark. Sarah tried to feel the necklace under her skin, but she couldn’t, it had gone. That little symbol of whatever femininity she’d had was gone. She wondered if Granny was asleep. But then Granny said, “If only it were real. But it’s not real. You’re not real.” She stroked Sarah’s face. “Oh, my love,” she whispered. “Oh, my poor dead love.”
And something between Sarah’s legs twitched. Something that had long rotted came to life, and slowly, weakly, struggled to attention. “You’re not real”, Granny was still saying, and now she was crying, and Sarah thought of how Granny had looked that day at the funeral, her face all soggy and out of shape, and she felt a stab of pity for her – and that was it, the pity was the jolt it needed, there was something liquid in this body after all. “You’re not real,” Granny said. “I am real,” he said, and he lent across, and kissed her on the lips. And the lips beneath his weren’t dry, they were plump, they were moist, and now he was chewing at her face, and she was chewing right back, like they wanted to eat each other, like they were so hungry they could just eat each other alive. Sharon Weekes was wrong, it was a stray thought that flashed through his mind, Sharon Weekes didn’t know the half of it. This is what it’s like, this is like kissing, this is like kissing a boy.
ROSALIE PARKER
In the Garden
ROSALIE PARLER GREW UP on a farm in Buckinghamshire and has lived subsequently in Stockholm, Oxford, Dorset, Somerset, Sheffield, Sussex and North Yorkshire. She took degrees in English Literature and History, and a Masters in Archaeology, working as an archaeologist before returning to her first love of books.
She now co-runs the independent publishing house, Tartarus Press (winner of three World Fantasy Awards), and lives in the Yorkshire Dales with her partner, the writer and publisher R.B. Russell, and their son Tim. Her interests include writing articles for The Book and Magazine Collector, gardening, hill-walking and antiques.
Parker’s short fiction has appeared in The Black Veil and Other Tales of Supernatural Sleuths, The Fifth Black Book of Horror and Supernatural Tales #15, and her first collection of stories, The Old Knowledge, is to be published by Swan River Press.
“‘In the Garden’ was written after I challenged myself to write a horror story about gardening,” explains the author. “It emerged more quickly and easily than anything I’ve ever written. I think of it more as a prose poem than a story.”
IT REALLY IS a lovely day. I’m not used to sitting in the garden, basking in the pleasant weather and enjoying the fruits of my labour. I spend most of my time here weeding and pruning, so I’m grateful for the opportunity to laze around for a change, watching the flower heads bob gently in the soft breeze, listening to the drowsy hum of the bees as they gorge on the comfrey blossoms.
You’ll have noticed that where we’re sitting, beneath the high wall, is concealed from view. None of the surrounding houses overlooks us. We can lounge in perfect peace while we chat – and I’m in a chatty mood today. An afternoon of rest after all my work. Yesterday’s showers mean that even the vegetable plot doesn’t need watering.
It never ceases to amaze me how the garden, cold and as good as dead just a few months ago, has burgeoned into lush green life. Is it only two years since I hacked back the old lilac tree behind you there – and look at it now! Tall enough to peep over the wall, its vigour restored by the judicious elimination of unproductive wood.
You’re not a gardener, are you? So perhaps you don’t know that once a garden is established, much of good gardening is about removal rather than planting, honing what you have to produce a pleasing effect, sacrificing the particular for the good of the whole. Gardening is a creative pastime, but the result is always a work in progress; unlike a painting or a piece of music a garden is never fixed in time.
I couldn’t see the attraction when I was a child. My mother would sometimes ask me to help weed our extensive vegetable beds, and it seemed a thankless task to me. I didn’t understand or appreciate the work that went into it, just the end result, which I viewed as entirely natural and given. Perhaps that’s how you see it now? As an adult I have learned to appreciate the satisfaction of managing nature, but as a child the garden was simply my world, the arena of my imagination, the setting for my elaborate games.
In those games I would order existence to suit myself. One day I’d be head of an animal capture company, exploring the rainforest in search of wildlife to sell to zoos, the next, the tamer of a wild bronco stallion, galloping on my hobby horse round and round the corral until the animal became tired and more responsive to my commands. My favourite game involved my brother as my trusted chimpanzee servant as I ruled, queenlike, over a large household. I expect many children have played similar games in gardens over the centuries, rehearsing unrealistic expectations of their adult lives. The green shoots of our imagination are soon blighted by the late frosts of adolescence.
Before we moved here I’d never owned a garden larger than a postage stamp and at first I was daunted by it. I tinkered around the edges, snipping a twig here, pulling a weed there. But gradually I’ve become more confident, until now, I feel I have ordered it how I want it, within the limits of the time available and the amount of money I’ve had to spend. I think you’ll agree that it pleases the eye – is well designed, both ornamental and practical. The oriental poppies are over now and I have tidied them away but they are one of my additions, along with the ferns and hostas in the shade of the southern wall. I removed the rowan tree that overshadowed the goldfish pond and dug the vegetable beds over by the pear tree. The chairs we are sitting on I found in an architectural salvage yard. Despite the occasional attack of aphids and the despoilations of the wind that blows down
this valley, I have charmed – and coerced – nature into doing my bidding.
Stephan doesn’t spend much time working in the garden; he regards it as my domain, which suits me. As you know, he prefers to tinker around with car engines. Each to their own. In the summer he comes out here to eat his meals in the sun, and he feeds the goldfish every day. I think he appreciates the garden, although he’s been so busy recently he’s not spent much time at home. We have achieved a hard-won symbiosis, he and I, which is as satisfying to me as it is, I have always thought, to him. We rub along well together, which is more than you can say for most couples. You’re probably too young to understand.
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror Page 39